


Freak

by F_A_E_R



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post Episode: Zurich, it turned out to be too long, maybe a mini-long, so now it's a long fic I guess?, this was supposed to be a one-shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 09:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17384087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F_A_E_R/pseuds/F_A_E_R
Summary: Arthur Shappey is a simple person.That is how he likes to describe himself, that is how Carolyn used to describe him when she met other kid’s mothers in front of the school and she was forced to exchange some polite chitchat.The women used to nod with contrite looks on their faces, but he had never understood why they looked so sorry: to him, that was the greatest compliment one could get.Because simple means spontaneous, pure, honest, kind. It means good, polite, cheerful, happy.Not blissful, not at all.Blissful would be asking too much and he knows it very well, he has learned it and he keeps it in mind every day.A year and a half after Zurich, Arthur still struggles with accepting how things turned out for MJN Air and especially for him.But Skip's happy now, so he must learn to let him go.What he doesn't know is that Skip is not happy at all.





	Freak

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!  
> I’ve been silently in the fandot for more than two years and it was about time I actually produced something!  
> This is my first Cabin Pressure fic, and English is not my native language, so please feel free to correct any mistake you’ll spot! All suggestions are more than welcomed! ;D  
> As I said in the tags, this fic was supposed to be a one-shot, but I decided to divide it into chapters, so rest assured all this angst will eventually have a happy ending!
> 
> Enjoy! <3
> 
> Kisses,  
> F_A_E_R

  
  
Arthur Shappey is a simple person.

That is how he likes to describe himself, that is how Carolyn used to describe him when she met other children’s mothers in front of the school and she was forced to exchange some polite chitchat.

The women used to nod with contrite looks on their faces, but he had never understood why they looked so sorry: to him, that was the greatest compliment one could get.

Because simple means spontaneous, pure, honest, kind. It means good, polite, cheerful, happy.

Not blissful, not at all.

Blissful would be asking too much and he knows it very well, he has learned it and he keeps it in mind every day.

He used to believe in absolute bliss, once: it was Sundays at the park waiting for dad to come back from one of his journeys, when mum bought him all the Toblerone he wanted and let him jump in the puddles getting mud all over his yellow rubber boots. It was G-ERTI landing with a delicate whistle and dad picking him up while giving mum a kiss. It was the book about animals written in a big and square font with colourful pictures that aunt Ruth had given him for his fourth birthday and mom always read out loud for him before he went to sleep.

He used to believe in that, but one day waking up he had found his mum alone at the kitchen table, the coffee in the mug as cold as her eyes circled with lost sleep.

\- Mum, where has dad gone? - he had asked.

Carolyn hadn’t even turned to him and just like a statue she had kept looking out of the window.

\- Arthur, my dear. Nobody stays forever. -

So he had stopped believing in bliss and he had started professing happiness and that, to be honest, was way more satisfying.

He was happy when he managed to read out loud without making mistakes; he was happy when the other kids invited him to play with them, even though he always ended up counting at hide and seek and he wasn’t really good at it. He had been super happy that one time when he had finally learned how to tie his shoes on his own.

It was good to be a simple person, because he found happiness in the most unexpected things, and that could come quite handy.

Not that he didn’t know sadness. She was an old friend of his and she visited him quite often, and she too described him as a simple boy. But her voice was dad’s harsh one, as dad’s was also her disappearing without saying goodbye, leaving him alone biting his lips not to cry.

Actually, Arthur Shappey knows what being a simple person means. Dad has taught him many times and he has assimilated it well.

Simple isn’t cheerful, simple is _not enough_.

It’s a word he doesn’t repeat, despite perfectly knowing its sound. They have shouted it at him, they’ve written it all over his forehead, on the torn pages of his schoolbooks. He’s been afraid of it, he still is.

There’s been a time, a long time in which at night he gasped awake, drenched in sweat, eyes swollen with tears as the word kept echoing in his head.

Even though now he’s grown up, he has a job and he has learned to be happy, he knows that word still has its power over him, and he avoids it.

He avoids it by singing louder than it, laughing louder, loving louder.

There are two rules Arthur repeats to himself every morning, just to be sure not to forget them, two essential rules to be happy and not to be afraid anymore: absolute bliss does not exist and nobody stays forever. If he knows that, if he keeps that in mind, there is nothing to risk and his enthusiasm can be genuine, he can do whatever he feels like doing, with no boundaries: it’s just all about not forgetting the rules.

Martin too likes rules, and this is a plus for sure, along with his ginger hair, his freckles and his sincere eyes.

Arthur likes Martin, because he’s smart, he’s polite and he’s a pilot. _Their_ pilot, their Skipper. He liked him from the very first moment, when mum let him on board G-ERTI and introduced him to him and Douglas.

After a long - _too long_ \- time, Arthur stopped being afraid of that awful word and its sound has become a simple itch in the depths of his conscience. After all, since Martin came to them, he’s got a lot of thing to keep himself entertained with: is it _really_ possible to fit one hundred otters inside G-ERTI?

That day, coming home, he had pondered about how his Skip really looked like a tiny otter, with his thin face and his always alert gaze. He had laughed, and mum hadn’t even asked him why, maybe she already knew. After all Carolyn is smart, she always understand things without needing explanations.

But there is something nobody still noticed: despite claiming the contrary, Arthur stopped being happy and became blissful again.

He’s blissful when he takes out of the drawer Martin’s sock and he thinks about the best Christmas in his whole life; he’s blissful when in the morning he breaks into the cabin and manages not to spill the coffee even though sometimes his hands shake a bit; he’s blissful when _Skip_ smiles and jokes with him.

Truth is, Arthur has never been this happy in his whole life and now he knows what that love everybody talks about is. It’s feeling home even stuck in the thick snow miles and miles away from Fitton, it’s getting to see the good and love the bad too, it’s being safe, it’s being special, it’s being _enough_ , for once.

It is when Martin confesses he got the job in Switzerland that Arthur realizes what catastrophic mistake he’s made.

There are two essential rules to keep in mind to be happy and not to be afraid anymore: absolute bliss does not exist and nobody stays forever.

With Martin Crieff, Arthur has forgotten them both.

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

Eighteen months have passed by. Five hundred and forty-four days, to be precise. Arthur has counted them.

Martin’s still in Switzerland, and as it seems he’s still co-pilot.

Last time he heard from him he looked happy, and Arthur can say that because he attended a course on understanding people in Ipswich.

After all he’s finally a real pilot, with a real salary and a real plane to fly and he’s engaged to the princess of Liechtenstein and well, a princess is the best to aim for, right? Also he checked and all the queens he knows are all already married or too old for Martin. Maybe Douglas could think about it, though… It would be fun, both MJN Air pilots would date royalty (except for Herc, but he dates mum, so it’s basically the same).

He, instead, never dated anyone. Nobody’s brilliant enough to get his attention, and moreover he realized something that has convinced him of giving up looking for a better half.

He’s not Baloo, like he had thought. He’s Quasimodo. He’s not quite sure about the role the others should play, though. Except for Frollo. Frollo is obviously his dad. Martin could be Captain Phoebus? Or maybe even Esmeralda.

It’s not important; what really matters is that he’s Quasimodo and the word he feared so much came to describe him perfectly again, as a dress that fits with no wrinkles. Because who could ever love someone like him? Bear him, yes. Grow fond of him, maybe.

Love him, never.

Maybe Arthur isn’t that smart, maybe he struggles to get things as quickly as others do, maybe he is, like he’s often been described, a kid in a grown man’s body, but it’s not that he understands nothing at all.

Certain things, certain gazes certain whispers… he’s always been able to detect them, and now they rain down on him with no pity whatsoever.

Arthur is not blissful anymore. The problem is, he can’t be happy either.

At first, night was a real torture, nothing could distract him and in his room, lights out, he cried until dawn came back to caress his swollen eyelids and his wretched heart.

Carolyn always told him to stop it, she told him that Martin had now his own life and unluckily he was not part of it, “nobody stays forever” she had reminded him.

He had tried to follow her advice and make do with Skype calls once a week.

It was good to see his Skip’s face, his blue eyes overflowing with satisfaction and the proud smile of someone whose dreams finally became reality. Every now and then Theresa popped up in the framing and greeted him with a quick kiss, but Arthur never reciprocated that gesture and he restricted himself to a polite smile and a waving hand.

Martin always asked him loads of questions about the airdot, about G-ERTI, about him, and Arthur had found out with a certain surprise that he had become an excellent liar.

“Airdot is going great, all is brilliant, Douglas is a brilliant Skipper!” he recited every time, careful not to look into the camera, because that way it would have been just as looking him straight in the eye and he would have surely flushed and Martin would have noticed it was a lie.

Then weekly calls had begun getting rare, the green dot next to Martin’s username was more and more red and eventually Arthur had stopped trying.

Now, in this grey and rain-menacing Thursday, five hundred and forty-four days have passed by since Martin left, and Arthur hasn’t heard from him in six months.

He hopes he’s happy in Zurich, because here in Fitton Arthur isn’t, not even a bit. And maybe he wouldn’t recognize him anymore, because even his _brilliant!_ left him alone and everyone knows that solitude withers smiles.

So, what is left of Arthur Shappey?

Nothing more than a shell, an empty chrysalis, arid, uninhabited.

In the meantime, his two broken rules remind him of how he fooled himself.

And now he only wishes he could really be _that_ simple.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


End file.
